Research In Brief: Toward a Threat Analysis Model (TAM) of Force

Research in Brief

Police Chief Magazine|Columns|Research in Brief|Research In Brief: Toward a Threat Analysis Model (TAM) of Force

Research In Brief: Toward a Threat Analysis Model (TAM) of Force

Kyle McLean, Assistant Professor, Florida State University; Geoffrey P. Alpert, Professor, University of South Carolina; Carolyn Naoroz, Body-Worn Camera Management Analyst, Richmond Police Department; and Arif Alikhan, Director of Constitutional Policing and Policy, Los Angeles Police Department, California

Discussions of police use of force are typically dominated by the concept of resistance. Indeed, criminal justice professor Dr. Carl Klockar’s conception of the police role developed in the 1980s describes force as the use of physical control to overcome resistance to legitimate police authority. Following that logic, policies have generally considered the use of force as being necessarily proportional to the level of resistance presented by the subject.